


Death's Door

by TheIllusiveMantis



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 21:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8343499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIllusiveMantis/pseuds/TheIllusiveMantis
Summary: Taako's dying. So, he calls the expert.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a very self-indulgent quick thing (for some time period after ep 50) that doesn't take place in any existing arc, sure to be dashed by canon later (but please, give me more canon!). Hope you enjoy!

Taako doesn't really find a safe place to rest so much as he sort of just... finds the ground. Hard. With his face.

 

A throb. Pain, haze. With effort, he rolls his body enough to draw breath. He tries to refocus the blurs around him, but things like ceilings and rocks and walls don't exist right now – only _cave_. It's possible Magnus and Merle will find him. He's left a trail for them to follow and it's hard to miss – bright red and punctuated here and there with dead brigands. For the most part, they've been frozen solid, their faces locked in comical surprise or horror – but that blood trail is his own making, baby.

 

Fuck, it hurts.

 

He moans theatrically from the pain, but what actually comes out is a quiet little whimper and it scares him. _Can I catch a break, can Taako catch one fucking break?,_ he'd been thinking, after the last brigand had come upon him and dealt the surprise blow that he knew in that very moment was just one too many, like there had been a threshold somewhere and he's crossed it.

 

Then with the last of his vigor he'd clubbed the guy right in the face with the umbra staff and the ruffian had gone out cold in a truly once-in-a-lifetime maneuver, not that there was anyone there to appreciate it. But at least Taako is alone. No more enemies in sight.

 

Able to die in peace with some god-damn dignity.

 

His wandering arm finds a slanted slab of rock nearby and he is able to crawl over and lean himself against it, able to rest his head against the wall and try once again to blink away the haze. It's a bit of an alcove he's found himself in. With unwelcome spikes of guilt he thinks of Magnus and Merle – he's hearing a far-off sound like clinks of metal _(steel against steel)_.

 

They thought they were ready to expect anything. But they'd underestimated their foe. _Bandits_ they could handle. An entire assassins' squad corrupted by an arcane and forbidden magical artifact? Yeah, so, not so much.

 

Not so much.

 

Taako is holding his stone of farspeech. He could tell them. But he _knows_. He _knows_ the sound of railsplitter, knows what “too far away” sounds like too, knows that Merle is out of spell slots, knows what he, Taako, is going to say even before he says it because he feels his stupid reservations bleeding out of him along with everything keeping him alive.

 

“ _Krav,”_ he breathes, barely more than a whispered prayer. He closes his eyes and knows it's not enough. He tries again. Tries for something more normal. Opens up his lungs and makes it count.

 

“ _Hey! Yo! Kravitz!”_

 

A long pause ensues. Taako waits. There's that sound, a rip like a strand of silk, and the fabric of space-time is opening and when Taako blinks again Kravitz is here in the cave with him. _And talk about leaving the house without putting on your face._ Still, he may not be the best at reading skeletal features, but Taako _sees_ the moment where Kravitz understands the situation.

 

“Taako,” he'd started to say, and then, “oh, no”

 

“Yeah,” Taako manages weakly. “Sorry, I'm a bit of a mess.”

 

Kravitz takes a few strides towards him. Hesitates, then kneels beside him. Puts out a hand like he wants to touch his face, sees his own bony knuckles and starts.

 

“Can we make with the handsome?” Taako tries to quip, though his voice trembles. “You know I love that whole 'reaper of immortal souls' thing, and it's really never been more appropriate than now, but-”

 

“Taako,” Kravitz says again, only this time he's wearing his human face, so beautiful, and the feeling this invokes in Taako is not carnal appreciation but sorrow deeper than belief. The fingers grazing Taako's cheek are too cold, but that's not why he shudders.

 

“You're... going to die here,” he hears. An observation.

 

“Yeah, and your Raven Queen will get that soul she wants so bad, too, don't think I'm going anywhere. I got it all gift-wrapped and everything, basically.”

 

They don't say anything for a good few seconds, but those icy fingers are threading through his hair now and Taako lets his head hang limply near Kravitz's chest.

 

“I didn't want this, you know,” Kravitz, and his voice sounds strangely sharp.

 

“Hmmm.”

 

“It was never personal. I thought you knew that.”

 

A pause. Taako's too tired to speak.

 

“...I'm sorry.” Kravitz again. The fingers in Taako's hair had stopped at some point. Now they resume. “I... I should be here for you right now.”

 

“Yeah?” a sardonic question.

 

“I _know_ the reason you called me isn't because you wanted me to make a present of your soul to the Raven Queen.”

 

Kravitz wraps one arm around his shoulders and pulls him in until Taako is full with the scent of him. Still, he inhales, and deeply.

 

“Yeah, after I die I thought maybe you could reposition my body, make it look like I'm giving everyone the bird.”

 

“Taako-”

 

“Yeah, I _did_ wanna look at your stupidly handsome face one more time, what of it?” Taako coughs out a laugh. Kravitz angles him back until they are face to face with each other and Taako has nowhere else to look but on that stupidly handsome face.

 

It is a nice sight. Maybe even wonderful. It makes his heart flutter in ways he won't have to be concerned with very soon. “...Is that how you looked before the Raven Queen offered you your deal, or whatever?” Taako asks, somehow, through the mesmerization, and this is really something they should have talked about while sipping coffee and looking out over one of the grand vistas in Neverwinter, or literally anywhere else.

 

Kravitz manages a smile. “I was better-looking then,” and Taako actually does laugh now, because even Kravitz knows that he is one damn fine-looking fellow. “Uh, little warmer, too.”

 

“Mmm, sounds nice.”

 

Kravitz is now sitting beside him against this wonderfully slopey rock and Taako leans his full weight against him, closing his eyes and deciding it's ok if he has this one last moment of what feels like happiness. Then-

 

“Hey, Krav?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Y'said earlier that even if I died there were... that there were ways around it. That we could still...” Breathe. “-still see each other.”

 

“In some capacity, yes,” Kravitz says but the tone of his voice conveys far more than his words could. “It wouldn't be exactly the same, Taako, but-”

 

“'Course not.” It figures.

 

Just then he hears a crackle over the stone of farspeech. It's Magnus's voice, sounding very strained but at least _alive_ , _“Taako? How'd the plan work out?”_

 

“ _He's probably still in the ethereal plane!”_ Merle.

 

The plan did not work out so very well, actually. Then again, if Magnus and Merle are still alive, maybe their plan to divide and conquer hadn't been a total failure. Taako switches off the stone. Saying good-bye is out of the question for him.

 

Kravitz is still stroking his hair and Taako is beginning to drift away on a cloud when he hears the following question:

 

“How are you... _feeling_ about dying, Taako?”

 

“What d'you mean? I mean not, great.”

 

Taako cracks his eyes open, enough to see Kravitz watching his answer. He begins to stumble on his words as more of them fall out.

 

“I mean, I guess it was bound to happen, right? Sooner or later, but basically _sooner_ , you know, let's be honest. I was hoping for something a little more of the 'he died a hero saving the entire world' variety, but...”

 

“You're not ready,” Kravitz says steadily, quietly.

 

“Is anyone ever _ready_?” Every word is painful now, but he finds his voice enough for this. “Has anyone ever been happy to see you coming down the block for them swinging that scythe around, dude?”

 

“A surprising number, yes. And that's not quite how it works.”

 

“Of course I'm not _ready_ ,” Taako all but cries. “You hear how they sounded over the stone? I mean, how long until they follow me on my way to- to _ghost jail_ because I wasn't around to look out for them? Like an _hour_?”

 

“Taako- I'm sorry. You can calm down now. It's alright.”

 

And Taako still has energy to argue until he hears Kravitz' impossibly soft voice murmuring those placating things into his ear, and then it's like a thread snaps _(or like he's letting go of a balloon)_ , and he finds that cloud again.

 

“Krav,” he murmurs, “you know of any good places, I think it's your turn to pick next time...”

 

“I think it is,” Kravitz says, after what could be a lull, because Taako can't tell anymore. He feels a pleasant warmth wash over him. Oddly, his fingertips tingle. He doesn't have quite enough presence of mind to think thoughts like, huh, _dying feels exactly like being healed_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Taako wakes up, his first thought is confusion, because he'd always sort of bought into the fantasy that being dead wasn't supposed to _hurt_ this much. What happened to the nice fluffy cloud that was carrying him away to whatever was beyond that veil?

 

And when he opens his eyes, right on cue, enter Merle and Magnus, both seeming _very_ worse for wear - but excited (and relieved) smiles dominate their faces.

 

He's crushed in a bear hug that he's convinced might make his arms pop right off of their own volition, which would be appropriate, wouldn't it, and Merle on the side is trying to trying to shame him for taking a nap and freaking the two of them out unnecessarily. Taako realizes he doesn't hurt nearly as much as he should.

 

They're able to shelter up, find a place to rest, and Taako tells himself he's not going to call Kravitz. He gets to his room. The first thing he does is call Kravitz.

 

He waits. And waits. His heart leaps. There's a sound on the line, odd and foreign. Then it's gone. Taako speaks the name into the empty room again, and again, though he never matches the volume and desperation of those moments that he thought were his last ones. He knows that later he will want something to cling to, the thought that he simply didn't call out loudly enough.

 

Because the truth is that he's been combing through explanations nonstop for a reason to explain the fact that he's still _here_ – (to himself, of course, Magnus and Merle still think he was napping on the job and that's all they _need_ to think) – and although his theory about the umbra staff becoming self-determinant and healing its master sounds perfectly plausible, there's a painfully lucid part of Taako that won't let itself be swayed by his mind's best efforts.

 

It's also trying hard to push out a memory of Kravitz telling Taako that he isn't supposed to meddle in mortal affairs, where life and death is concerned.

 

He sleeps. (Maybe.) And the next day, when they're patched up and venturing out again, Taako wears the stone of far-speech under his shirt so the stone rests against his heart. It's as cold as death.

 

He keeps it there. Just in case.

 


End file.
